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America The Distrustful: Bureaucratization, Cynicism, and Despotism

History suggests that, when citizens come to deeply distrust their country’s institutions, the cancer of political degeneration may be taking hold. In America, cynicism appears to have metastasized to such an extent that it is now afflicting high schools. At least that’s the conclusion suggested by Jessica Contrera’s recent Washington Post piece.

Contrera reports that, in the past, high school teachers “feared teenagers would fall for everything they read online, [whereas] now teachers are increasingly concerned that their students will grow up not believing anything they read—or worse, believing the difference between what’s real and what’s fake is a matter of choice.”

Having lived in both Chicago, Illinois, and northern New Jersey—where cynicism has long passed for political prudence—I wondered whether this development was truly new. But then I reviewed the national polling on Americans’ attitudes. CONTINUE READING HERE